UN Women's priority theme this year is "challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls". The secondary themes is "Participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women (agreed conclusions of the forty-seventh session)".

Background

CSW 62 focuses on the development of rural women and girls’ human rights across the domains of land and resources, food, and living standards and social protections from a varied and intersectional perspective. Two of the main drivers of rural women’s rights violations is the neo-liberal economic model and the increasing impacts of climate change. Because rural women’s rights to their land is threatened by globalization as well as climate change and access to water and food is limited, it is important to establish policies that promote food sovereignty for women, promote nutritional empowerment, protect women’s health rights, and ensure fair and safe working conditions for rural women. Legislation must be gender-focused, as gender-neutral laws do not adequately protect women nor do they enable women’s collective power or self-determination. WECF will continue to work with CSW initiatives as it has in previous years. Read the full report here.